The Darling Dahlias and the Texas Star (9 page)

“To answer your other question,” she went on, “no, I’m not coming with Grady.”

“You’re not?” Mildred raised both eyebrows. “Well, then, who
are
you comin’ with, Liz?”

“Nobody,” Lizzy said with a sigh. “I’m coming by myself. I’m afraid it’s my own fault,” she added ruefully.

“There’s got to be a story behind this,” Mildred said.

There
was
a story—and it was indeed Lizzy’s fault, for
two
men had asked to take her to the party.

One was Grady, of course, her more-or-less-steady boyfriend for the past three years, who fully expected her to marry him. Both her mother and Grady’s mother expected it, too. In fact, the last time Lizzy and Grady had gone to his mother’s house for Sunday dinner, Mrs. Alexander had casually commented that now that Mr. Alexander was gone, she was just rattling around in the big old place and that after the wedding, there was not a reason in the world they couldn’t come and live with
her.
Grady had said he thought this was a good idea—until Lizzy said she definitely didn’t.

The other was Mr. Moseley.

“Mr. Moseley asked to take you to the party!” Mildred sat forward, her eyes widening in surprise. “Mr. Benton Moseley, your
boss
?
I must say, Liz, he’s quite a prize! Why in the world aren’t you comin’ with
him
,
then? You couldn’t have been fool enough to turn him down. Could you?”

“Not exactly,” Lizzy said.

She sighed and went on with her tale. The problem was that over the past year, Grady had begun to take her pretty much for granted. He more or less assumed that they would go to the party together in the same way he assumed they’d get married and have three children and that Lizzy would give up her job and stay home to take care of them, just as his mother had done. So he hadn’t bothered to invite her. In fact, he hadn’t even mentioned the party, which led Lizzy to wonder whether he had been invited. For all she knew, Mildred was inviting (besides the Kilgores’ country club friends) only the Dahlias, and inviting them only because of the plant they were presenting to Miss Dare.

“Well, of course Grady was invited,” Mildred put in crossly. “I wrote the invitation myself.”

“I wish I’d known that,” Lizzy said. It was truly awkward, because
she
had been invited and because a properly brought up Southern girl did not ask a man to take her out, even a man whose mother was expecting to be her mother-in-law. Lizzy was very modern in some ways. She loved earning her own paycheck and living in her own house, she smoked occasionally, she drank when she felt like it (no matter that booze was illegal), and she didn’t mind necking in the front seat of Grady’s blue Ford, even going a little farther than necking when they were both in the mood.

But she was old-fashioned in other ways, and not wanting to ask a man—even Grady Alexander—to go to a party with her was one of them. Even more, she was irritated by the fact that Grady was taking her for granted, not just as his date for the Kilgores’ party but as his soon-to-be spouse—although she had not agreed to be either one.

And then, while she was mulling over these admittedly contradictory feelings, she found an entirely unexpected note on her desk the morning after Mr. Moseley had left for the Democratic convention in Chicago. The note, written in Mr. Moseley’s strong, sprawling hand, asked if Lizzy would go with him to the Kilgores’ party. He had been invited, of course, since he belonged to the country club.

Mildred blinked. “My goodness gracious, Liz. You must have been surprised.”

“Could’ve knocked me over with a feather,” Lizzy confessed. She had been so stunned that she had sat at her desk for a full five minutes, looking down at Mr. Moseley’s invitation and wondering what to do.

Not many of her friends knew it (certainly not Grady), but Benton Moseley held a special place in Lizzy’s heart. He was sweet and very good-looking, and when she had first gone to work for him and his father, she was smitten. He was just out of law school, bright and full of Southern charm. He had never been more than courteous and polite, but Lizzy (who had read too many dime-novel romances in which beautiful but penniless young women married wealthy and handsome young gentlemen and lived happily ever after) managed to conjure up endless fantasies about him. It was a serious crush and—unfortunately—a durable one. In fact, she continued to carry her secret torch right up to the point where Mr. Moseley had gotten himself married to a beautiful blond debutante from a wealthy Birmingham family.

The marriage had not lasted long: just long enough to allow Lizzy to outgrow her adolescent crush and feel only a quiet, respectful warmth for Mr. Moseley and a genuine regret for the failure of his marriage. But as it happened, on the morning she found his invitation, she was feeling deeply annoyed at Grady. So when Mr. Moseley telephoned a little later to pick up his messages, she had told him she would be delighted to go to the Kilgores’ party with him.

“That’s swell, Liz,” he had said, and she heard the pleasure in his deep, resonant voice. “I’m looking forward to it.”

“So am I,” she said, and found to her dismay that it was true. She really was looking forward to going to Mildred’s party with Mr. Moseley. And
he
had never seen her in that lovely gray dress.

“Then why aren’t you coming with him?” Mildred demanded. “Did he change his mind? Did
you
?”

“Well . . .” Lizzy said. Not twenty minutes after she had happily accepted Mr. Moseley’s invitation, Grady had stopped by the office to tell her that he had just learned that the Kilgores’ party was “black tie” and wanted to know what that meant. When she told him, he was pained.

“A
dinner jacket
!” he growled. “Good grief, Liz. I haven’t worn a dinner jacket since college.”

“I don’t doubt that.” Lizzy glanced at his working clothes: a blue cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled high on tanned, strong arms, twill wash pants, a sweat-stained felt fedora pushed to the back of his head, boots caked with barnyard mud. If it weren’t for that rakish fedora, he might have been a cowboy in one of Tom Mix’s Western movies. “You’re not exactly the black tie type, Grady.”

“Damn right. I don’t even know if my old jacket will fit.” He sighed, a heavy, put-upon sigh. “I suppose you’ll be all dolled up. Do I need to buy you a corsage or something?” He paused, considering. “Say, how about if I pick you some lilies of the valley? My mother has some blooming beside her front porch. They’d look kinda nice on that gray dress of yours.”

“You don’t have to do that, Grady,” Lizzy had said in her sweetest voice. “Mr. Moseley will take care of it.”

“Mr. Moseley?” Grady scowled. He pulled down the corners of his mouth. “What the devil has Bent Moseley got to do with your flowers?”

“Why, he’s taking me to the party,” Lizzy replied lightly. “You didn’t say a word about it. So when Mr. Moseley asked, I said I’d be glad to go with—”

Grady stood up so fast that he knocked the chair over. “You are going to the Kilgores’ party with Benton Moseley?” he roared. When Lizzy said yes, she was, he said, well, that beat all he’d ever heard. He stomped out of the office, slamming the door so hard that Mr. Moseley’s great-grandfather tilted to one side on the wall.

All Lizzy could do was stare at the closed door. Grady had occasionally displayed spurts of jealousy, but never anything like this volcanic eruption. Seeing his reaction, she began to feel guilty. She hadn’t really wanted to make him jealous—had she?

“Well, if you ask me, Mr. Grady Alexander got just what he deserved,” Mildred remarked tartly. “The two of you aren’t engaged, at least not so far as I’ve heard. He should never have assumed.” She frowned. “But what about Mr. Moseley?
He
asked you—why aren’t you coming with him?”

“Because,” Lizzy said. Last week, when Mr. Moseley got back from helping to put Governor Roosevelt at the top of the Democratic ticket, he had told her that he had to break their date. He’d been called to Montgomery on a case that was being heard in state court there and would have to stay the whole weekend. “I’ll call Roger and tell him I won’t be there.

“I am so very sorry, Liz,” he said penitently. “I was looking forward to it. I’ll think of a way to make it up to you. Maybe we could go to—”

“Oh, don’t, please,” Lizzy had replied. “It’s all right, Mr. Moseley. I don’t mind one bit. I know there are things you have to do.”

And while she couldn’t help feeling disappointed, it really
was
all right. Going out with Mr. Moseley might have been a memorable experience, but it wasn’t the best idea in the world.

“Not the best idea in the world is right,” Mildred said flatly. “What would you do if Mr. Moseley wanted to kiss you? One thing leads to another, you know.” Her voice took on an oddly bitter edge. “It could be dangerous, Liz. There’s no telling where it would end. In a scandal, probably.”

Lizzy stared at her in some surprise, thinking that in all the years she had known Mildred Kilgore, she had never heard her friend use such a darkly judgmental tone. Mildred made it sound as if going to a party with Mr. Moseley meant that they would end up in bed together—and Lizzy knew that was definitely
not
going to happen. A little harmless flirting was one thing, especially if it made Grady appreciate her a little more. Sex was quite another. She was saving herself for marriage—or trying to, anyway, although that was sometimes a challenge, especially because Grady wasn’t very cooperative. She opened her mouth to correct this wrong impression, but Mildred was going on.

“I’m sorry you have to come to the party alone, Liz. If I could think of somebody to fix you up with, I would. But we’re a little short of single men these days.” She paused, raising one eyebrow. “Or maybe you should let Grady know that you’re available again.”

“I don’t think so,” Lizzy said, remembering the way Grady’s mouth had twisted like a knotted rope and how hard he had slammed the door. That had been several days ago and she hadn’t heard a word from him since. He was sulking.

“Anyhow,” she added, “a date might get in the way.”

“In the way of what?” Mildred asked.

Lizzy put down her glass. It was time to spell out the reason for her visit. “Charlie Dickens had a call from Miss Dare this afternoon.”

“Oh,
that
woman.” There was no mistaking it this time. Mildred sounded as if she found the two words as distasteful as spoiled sauerkraut. “What did
she
want?”

Now Lizzy really was puzzled. Something was going on here—something involving Miss Dare. But what it was, she had no idea. So she only said, “It looks like we might have a bit of a problem, Mildred.”

Then, for the next few minutes, she gave Mildred a thoroughly edited version of what Charlie had told her, omitting any mention of a personal relationship between the editor of the
Dispatch
and the Texas Star—or between the Texas Star and anybody else. And especially not Roger Kilgore.

Mildred was staring at her, eyes narrowed, an unreadable expression on her face. “Lily Dare’s airplane was sabotaged?” she said. “Does that mean that somebody tried to
kill
her?”

The question stopped Lizzy. She had thought of the sabotage merely as a way of causing trouble for the flying circus, a nuisance kind of thing, nothing else. She hadn’t thought of it as an attempt on Lily Dare’s life. But now that Mildred raised the question—

She shivered. “Gosh, Mildred, I just don’t know. I guess if somebody was tampering with her plane, she could have been killed. And Charlie says he thinks she’s scared. He believes that she might be in danger—while she’s here, I mean. That’s why he asked me to help.”

“In danger.” Mildred’s eyes narrowed. “Well, I have to say I’m not surprised. If that woman is in the habit of behaving the way she did at the Lions Club convention in San Antonio, she probably has quite a few enemies following her around. I—”

She stopped, pressing her lips together, as if she had said more than she meant to say.

San Antonio,
Lizzy thought. That was where Roger had first met Miss Dare, wasn’t it?
All of a sudden, everything clicked into place. Mildred (who wasn’t the prettiest peach on the tree) was jealous of Lily Dare (who was). And while Lizzy didn’t like to think about it, Mildred’s worries might well be justified. She remembered Grady’s report of the gossip at Bob’s Barbershop. And Charlie Dickens’ remark that a little thing like a wedding ring wouldn’t stop the Texas Star from fooling around if she wanted to. Miss Dare might have been tempted with Roger Kilgore in the same way that (according to Charlie) she had been tempted with Douglas Fairbanks.

Lizzy felt as if she had just stepped into a tangle of poisonous snakes, but of course this was all conjecture, and (as Mr. Moseley liked to say) an ounce of facts always outweighed a ton of speculation. She took a deep breath and hurried on.

“Charlie says he’s going to hang around the airfield over the weekend. He’s worried that there might be another attempt at sabotage. But he knew that you’ve invited Miss Dare to be your guest, so he thought—”

She paused, uncomfortably aware that she had gotten to the tricky part. “He suggested that I might try to keep an eye on things here—at your house, I mean. In case somebody tried something.”

“Tried something?” Mildred asked, frowning.

“Tried to . . . oh, I don’t know. Cause trouble, I suppose.” Lizzy took a breath. “I told him I was planning to be here just for the party. But as I was riding over just now, it occurred to me that maybe there might be another possibility. Of course, it’s just an idea, and maybe you won’t like it, but—”

“What did you have in mind?” Mildred asked, cutting Lizzy short.

Feeling awkward, Lizzy cleared her throat. “Well, I thought maybe I could sleep over on Friday and Saturday nights. If you have room, that is,” she added hastily. “I don’t want to impose or upset any of your plans. And I certainly don’t want to invite myself as a houseguest if I’m not—”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Mildred interrupted brusquely. “Of course you wouldn’t be imposing, Liz. Actually, I think it’s a good idea. I certainly wouldn’t want any trouble while she’s here.”